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Oxnard to finalize budget that could reach far into Measure O revenue

The Oxnard City Council will adopt a budget during its June 18 meeting.(Photo: WENDY LEUNG/THE STAR)

For the past five weeks, the Oxnard community has been agonizing over what will stay and what will go as city leaders wrestle with a giant budget gap.

On Tuesday, the City Council will adopt the budget, finalizing plans for city services that affect nearly every municipal department.

The process has been an emotional one. News that a south Oxnard fire engine, performing arts center, library, downtown museum could all go away were met with anger, frustration and sadness.

Council will likely send a lifeline to some of those services, but not all.

Fundraising appeared to have rescued the small library branch in La Colonia, which costs $27,000 to run. A grant will keep a La Colonia boxing gym open for 20 hours a week. An earlier plan called for reduced hours for the storied gym.

The Carnegie Art Museum is expected to close, at least until downtown development picks up.

Saving other services will involve dipping into Measure O, the half-cent sales tax that voters passed in 2008.

'It has to come from somewhere'

The Oxnard Performing Arts and Convention Center was proposed to close in July. With council approval, $410,000 of Measure O will go toward keeping the facility open through the end of December. After that, it'll depend on whether an outside operator will step up to run the center without the city's financial help.

An additional $1 million from Measure O will go toward keeping an engine at Fire Station 2 on Pleasant Valley Road, the city's southernmost station. The original proposal called for replacing the engine with a smaller paramedic squad.

"There was a perception because of the Colonia library and Fire Station 2 that these cuts where intentionally focused on the south end or to people who need them the most," Mayor Tim Flynn said last week. "The fact of the matter is, it has to come from somewhere."

The city faces a $9.2 million budget gap, which it plans to close with cuts and reserves.

If Measure O funds are not used for the performing arts center and fire engine, there would be $4.1 million left over by the end of the upcoming fiscal year. If council approves the Measure O appropriations, the ending balance would be about $2.7 million. This year, the ending balance for Measure O is nearly $12 million.

Councilwoman Gabriela Basua, whose district encompasses the Pleasant Valley station, wasn't willing to support taking out a fire engine.

"I'm not willing to say let's close it when there's a $4.1 million surplus," Basua said at the June 5 meeting.

Fire Station 2 was picked to "brown out" an engine based on data collected by the fire chief. About 68% of the station's calls are medical, Fire Chief Darwin Base said.

Other ideas were recently discussed such as "browning out" a paramedic squad instead of an engine for a savings of $500,000. But council members were willing to use Measure O funds to save the engine as suggested by Basua.

Flynn called it a compromise.

"Frankly, when something is framed as saving a human life, you can never put a dollar on that," Flynn said. "You're going to have problems cutting public safety."

When Measure O was pitched to Oxnard voters at the cusp of the Great Recession, the tax was meant to go toward enhancing city services.

"When everything was collapsing, Measure O went from enhancement to basically a life preserve," said City Manager Alex Nguyen.

The proposed budget did not call for that much spending from Measure O, Nguyen said, because he wanted to keep a cushion for addressing homelessness. He warned council members at the last meeting not to be reliant on Measure O, which sunsets in 2029.

"This organization has to begin to ween itself off of this fund because it's going to expire," Nguyen said.

The council meeting begins 5 p.m. at the Council Chambers, 305 W. Third St.

Wendy Leung is a staff writer for the Ventura County Star. Reach her at wendy.leung@vcstar.com or 805-437-0339. You can also find her on Twitter @Leung__Wendy.